Dean Grey Presented With Pathfinder Award

September 13, 2012

YSN Dean Margaret Grey, DrPH, RN, FAAN, was presented with the 2012 Pathfinder Award from the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research (FNINR) at their "NightinGala" event on September 12 in Washington, DC. This prestigious award is given annually to a nurse researcher whose work demonstrates a long program of scientific contributions in a field that advance understanding of human health and health care.

Dean Grey's research was recognized among nurse scientists whose work epitomizes commitment to inquiry in a variety of domains relevant to the discipline and practice of nursing.

Below is the introduction to the presentation of the Pathfinder Award to Dean Grey at the Nightingala 2012 event in Washington, DC:

From her early career passion to help children and youth manage chronic illness in ways that would not only improve their physiologic status but also their psychosocial state, Dr. Margaret Grey is a distinguished clinical scientist who has practiced as a nurse practitioner, educator, and mentor to numerous nursing and interprofessional scholars, and has been a leader in nursing research for over 35 years. Since 1989, Dr. Grey has been the principal investigator on NIG grants totaling over $18 million and the findings from those studies have changed practice.

Dr. Grey has made significant contributions to clinical practice and patient outcomes through her development, rigorous testing, and dissemination of Coping Skills Training, an approach to help children, adolescents, and adults better manage their chronic health conditions. Her meticulous program of research began with descriptive studies where she noted the natural history of adaptation to chronic illness in childhood, with a special focus on children with Type I Diabetes. Building on this study, which demonstrated the primary role of coping skills in determining clinical outcomes, Dr. Grey’s research trajectory advanced to developing and testing a behavioral intervention (coping skills training) to improve both metabolic control of diabetes and quality of life in young people and their parents. With the advent of the childhood obesity epidemic, this intervention model has been expanded to address the prevention of childhood obesity and Type 2 Diabetes in high risk youth.

Dr. Grey paved the way for behavioral management to become inclusive in the standard of care for children and adolescents as they learned to manage their daily self-care routines following diagnosis. Based on her early research which uncovered significant emotional components for children and teens living with diabetes (specifically, depression), she adapted approaches used in the field of psychology to shape a unique approach to clinical care management.

Dr. Grey has also been a pathfinder in the development of practice-based research networks in nursing as an approach to the dissemination and translation of research findings into practice. A prolific scholar, speaker, and expert used in mass media, her research was selected by the NINR as one of the 10 most influential research trajectories in their 20-year history. She has received the Outstanding Nurse Scientist Award from the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science and has been inducted into the Institute of Medicine.

Dr. Grey is the Dean and Annie Goodrich Professor at Yale University School of Nursing. She also serves as the T3 Translational Research Core Director for the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation. Her academic path includes an earned BSN from the University of Pittsburgh, MSN from Yale University in the pediatric nurse practitioner program, a DrPH with a concentration in sociomedical sciences from Columbia University in New York, and an MA (Honoris Causa) from the University of Pennylvania.

For their pathfinding abillites as leaders and scholars in research, FNINR proudly recognizes Dr. Grey.

The Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research (FNINR) provides resources to support nursing research and advance the mission of the National Institute of Nursing Research. The FNINR seeks to support research-based practice by educating all health care professionals, Congress, and other appointed and elected officials, and the public about advances made through nursing research and its benefits to patients, families, the community, and the delivery of quality health care.